The various embodiments described herein relate generally to a mail processing system. More particularly, these embodiments relate to a method and system for extracting sorted mail items from pockets used in such a system.
Each day postal services process mail items for delivery to millions of individual domestic addresses. As used throughout this application, mail items refer to letters, magazines, books and other such flat items. Before mail carriers begin to walk through or drive through their delivery routes, a mail processing system at a processing site sorts all mail items for the carriers and prepares the sorted mail items for delivery to a multitude of domestic addresses. A carrier's responsibility includes putting all of these mail items into an appropriate sequence for efficient delivery to the domestic addresses.
The mail processing system is highly automated to handle the amount of daily mail items. Some mail processing systems may include a delivery point packaging (DPP) system that, for example, separates the mail items, reads their destination addresses and groups the mail items based upon their respective destination addresses. U.S. Pub. No. 2003/0038065 describes an automated DPP system that includes casing towers each carrying, on a given number of levels, vertically oriented pockets (slots) with front openings to receive mail items in horizontal direction. The pockets are grouped in containers or pods to receive most or all mail for the respective delivery point. Robots transport the mail items to the pockets, one mail item per robot, and insert them into the pockets. Each robot is equipped with an inserter apparatus configured to extend towards the pocket to insert the mail item into the assigned pocket. After the mail item is inserted, the inserter apparatus retracts and the empty robot returns to a loading station.
In the system described in U.S. Pub. No. 2003/0038065, extraction of the one or more mail items from the pockets occurs in opposite direction to the loading direction, i.e., horizontally through the front opening. Each pocket includes a mechanism that transports the one or more mail items horizontally out of the pocket. This mechanism includes a belt system with a bridge (H-belt) that pushes the mail items out of the pocket. The pocket is, therefore, a complex structure.